Abbott, Othman A.

Othman A. Abbott (1842-1935), a practicing
lawyer at Grand Island beginning in 1867, was not only one of
Nebraska's influential pioneer lawyers but also one of the state's
first sellers of life insurance. Abbott recalled in 1928, "The
federal tax collector found me here [Grand Island] and taxed
me ten dollars per annum for a license as an insurance agent.
The first insurance I wrote was my own. I took out a thousand
dollar life insurance policy in the Mutual Life of New York,
paying $20.92 as a yearly premium. It was numbered 102,122 and
is now the oldest policy issued by the company in the state.

"I took pains to see to it that the
old [Civil War] wound in my side was carefully noted in my application
and was much relieved when the doctor passed me as a good risk.
I was not only glad to know that my wound was no longer considered
a menace to my health, but I was also glad to have the feeling
that in the event of my death there would be something left from
which any little debts could be paid.

"There was at that time in the west,
and perhaps also in other parts of the country, a good deal of
prejudice against life insurance, particularly among women. In
fact, the hardest part of an insurance agent's job was to persuade
the man's wife. Many people had a sort of fatalism about it and
believed that taking out life insurance was in itself an invitation
to hasten death. A common expression used by a woman was that
she didn't want any 'blood money' and didn't want to be 'paid
for her husband's death.'"

"When one of the old line life insurance
companies urged me to take part in fighting the unsound 'pass
around the hat' associations that sprang up, I refused and pointed
out to them that these benevolent associations, even if they
were not very sound financially, were doing a great deal of good
by educating people to understand the value of life insurance."